Wow, now that’s a lot of covers! A whole season in fact. With our US Spring-Summer 2012 catalog sneaking out into the world we wanted to go ahead and post all the early covers in one place so you don’t have to go sneaking about the interwebs looking for them. As this is catalog time, and pretty much a whole year before these books will go to print, a lot is still in development, and a lot will still change, so I’ve marked the not-final covers so there is no confusion. After the jump you can link and download each cover individually.

So go ahead! Get excited! Make your christmas lists, birthday lists, and beach-reading lists, and in the coming months we will be launching each of these covers with all the pomp and circumstance (and fun background videos, insider info, and semi-lucid ravings of yours truly) you have come to expect right here on orbitbooks.net

Today I am very excited to launch a hotly-anticipated book (and cover!) for The Seven Princes by John R. Fultz. I am absolutely in love with the art by Richard Anderson. I love his loose, impressionistic fantasy style. This project is a perfect example of everything we try to do at Orbit – make an amazing cover that absolutely oozes fantasy, yet do it with an infusion of a fresh new style or new angle. The book is a very classic fantasy tale but told in a really fast-paced cinematic, almost modern pulp kind of feel, and I am just thrilled with this marriage of artist and story. Definitely go check out the artist’s site and blog, he’s been working on concept art for Guild Wars for a long time, and if you are familiar with the game you’ll definitely recognize things, but all of his portfolio pieces are super drool-worthy. I am very excited to get working on the next cover in the series soon!

After the jump, get a teaser and see the art big and sexy…(yes sexy is a technical art-direction term!) (more…)

Like I was saying when I posted the Chasing the Moon wallpapers, I love that Will Staehle’s covers really work together to give the author a cohesive look and feel, but they work as the stand-alone stories they are. I thought Monster was my favorite…until this one came in. A squid riding a body with a suit and tie! I mean come on, that’s hilarious. And the squid has a crown. And the back cover art is pretty fab too, just wait and see. So here’s another great one, to look and and to read, for a tale of intergalactic politics and a galaxy-wide scourge…who just might be sick of keeping up his reputation.

And really, the best reading line i’ve put on a title in a long time. “He came, he squirmed, he conquered!” ha!

Here’s a teaser, and all A. Lee Martinez’s covers together after the jump…

Here’s a bittersweet cover launch for you – sweet, because it’s another great cover by Calvin Chu, showing one of my favorite Lilith Saintcrow heroines, Jill Kismet. Bitter because it’s the finale of the Jill Kismet series! I love the graphic feel of these covers, it’s been a really fresh take on the urban fantasy style, and both Jill Kismet & Dante Valentine were well-characterized by the illustrations. In this book we really wanted to refer back to the first cover (Night Shift) and bring the series full-circle with a close-up shot. After the jump, see the whole series together, and a teaser…

Having a long series of books (aka more than a trilogy) is a lot of fun, because over time, just as the reader does, you get a better feel for the character, and it definitely comes out in the cover art. Craig White has been really hitting his stride with Sabina Kane, I feel like each cover has more and more personality. The great photo shoots by Shirley Green with Toni Busker as our model certainly help. Toni is a veteran of many geek projects, and she is super fun to work with as she is always game for climbing about and playing with all kinds of weapons…Actually you may recognize her as a mermaid in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean #4. If that’s not geek cred for a cover model, I don’t know what is.

So, back to the cover at hand – as you can see, Sabina is back and prowling in NYC, and after the jump you can get a little teaser, along with the covers in order…

Trilogies are a mainstay of science fiction and fantasy and that’s a challenge that comes up for us in the Orbit Art Department over and over again. The first cover is both the hardest (it has to be AWESOME and make a big splash, especially if it’s for a debut author) and the easiest (no preconceptions and rules dictated by previous covers). The second cover is important because you obviously want it to be as cool as the first, and not fall victim to any sequel-slacking. And the third? Well the third is kind of the best, because by the last book in a trilogy, you’ve already got a good feel for the world in question, and the tone of the author, and you usually get something good and dramatic to wrap up with. And while we’re talking about dramatic, I am happy to release the cover for the third book in N. K. Jemisin‘s Inheritance Trilogy: The Kingdom of Gods.

I have been thrilled at how well cover one was received across the fantasy community — it was accepted into the Spectrum annual, and was nominated for a Gemmell Legend Award. We were trying to do something pretty standard (fantasy city) and present it in a fresher way (through the style of Cliff Nielsen‘s awesome artwork), and it really resonated with a lot of people, which is great because the books just happen to be super-fantastic as well. And over the last two books the illustrations have been just as strong, while keeping to that pretty simple formula.

And now we have this illustration, which I don’t want to say too much about, because I wouldn’t want to give anything away about the story…obviously if you have been reading along, the god is Sieh (my favorite)…just trust me, if you have been enjoying The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms, well The Kingdom of Gods does not disappoint. After the jump, get a teaser, and the whole series of covers… (more…)

I am so freaking excited to finally let these covers out into the world. Joe Abercrombie is one of Orbit’s most exciting authors (never mind the snarkiest) and I have been dying to take a fresh look at some of his covers. When I read his books I feel like I am watching a movie, and I just wanted to get across that sense of action and brutality and sheer bloodiness all into the cover at once. So, stealing some style markers from hi-action sports photography married to a lot of fantastic armament (some things you just can’t fake in photoshop), we present to you the most badass covers I have ever had a hand in. As you can see from the process shots after the jump, we got a lot of the shot done in the camera, thanks to the technical wizardry of photographer Michael Frost. Photo-illustrator Gene Mollica hunted down all the proper bits of armor and sharp pointy things (some of which he had custom made because he is such a perfectionist), and then when it was his turn to illustrate, he turned the already-fantastic photos into sheer magic in post-production. We also have to thank Adam Becker for the use of his great action pose ability, and Heather Ann Burton for her scowling personification of Monza.

I admit I was a bit terrified to show these to Joe…these covers have more in common with movie posters than most covers in the fantasy section…and Joe is a really savvy author on visuals — he’s had a lot of different styles, and he’s not afraid to give his opinion. And I was in love with these, which makes it even more stressful showing the author. So what did he say?

The Troupe by Shirley Jackson Award winner Robert Jackson Bennett hits shelves February 2012. When you have an intelligent combination of thriller, horror, and Americana…you end up with a book that stands on its own.

I’m going to write more about the process and how I got to the final design. But since we’re so excited about launching the cover, here it is today!

Mid-series covers are at the same time a relief and a challenge. On one hand you already have the general look and feel of the art established, so a lot of the trial and error is skipped. Unless something has gone terribly wrong you are usually commissioning art from the same artist, and they start working a lot closer to the target. The type style is usually set, and overall it’s kind of fun to be able to play within those constraints. However you also can’t play it too safe and end up with boring art, or at least, art that isn’t pushed to its full potential. Because sometimes, especially in the case of a new author, the second cover is even more important than the first—you want to really show this author is establishing a strong series and the world is something you want to be drawn into. I know a lot of people—in fact, I am married to one—that won’t start a series if just the first book is out. (For example, he’s recently got into Game of Thrones on HBO and was really interested in reading the books until he heard it wasn’t a completed series…and yes, these are the fights that go on in my house) Thus, it’s really important to make mid-series covers as awesome, if not MORE awesome, than the first cover.

This brings me to Exogene, the next book in T. C. McCarthy’s Subterrene War series (Germline is the first, which just came out and is getting greatreviews). Steve Stone did a fabulous job on the Germline cover – it was the perfect tone – obviously military SF but the attitude tells you there is something deeper going on here. Of course, this makes the Exogene cover harder. For one, a female lead character which means you are immediately fighting certain clichés, and (I don’t want to give away anything here) she is a character full of contradictions. We wanted to capture her maybe right on the edge between blind belief and doubt. A soldier still heroic, but perhaps with just the slightest uncertainty beginning to show on her face. And add to that delicate proposition the fact that it’s a beautiful young woman who also happens to be bald. And then make her look like a convincing soldier. Not an easy task. But in my opinion, yet again, he nailed it.

After the jump, see the cover next to Germline and get a teaser…. (more…)